captioning sponsored by comedy central ( theme song playing ) ( cheers and applause ) from comedy central's world news headquarters in new york, this is the "daily show" with jon stewart. ( cheers and applause ) >> jon: welcome to the "daily show." my name is jon stewart. we've got a great show for you tonight. thank you. in my-- in my continuing effort to make myself look as much like a keebler elf as possible, our guest tonight magic johnson will be joining us. ( applause ) have we had anybody-- i think

flaft two weeks have, we had anybody under, like, 6'6" on the show? everybody that's been on the show gives me a ride home in their pocket. ( laughter ) let's juch right into the big story with our continuing coverage of democalypse 2012. ( laughter ) >> i-- i hope you have dolby at home. because that's-- ( laughter ) folks, election watchers are always poised this late in the campaign season for what they refer to as an october surprise. it appears that time is upon us. as evidenced by the recent presidential debate where barack obama unveiled his explosive october surprise that he has given up. ( laughter ). surprise! ( applause ) even the president acknowledged to his less-than-stellar

performance. >> after the debate i had a bunch of folks come to me, don't be so polite. don't be so nice. what was being presented wasn't leadership. that's salesmanship. >> jon: right, but salesmanship is the thing you invariably need to acquire leadership. ( laughter ) by the way, i don't think anyone was suggested you need to be polite. that you just shout, yeah, ( bleep ) liar!" people are just suggesting you stand up to mr. romney "with all due respect, you're a ( bleep ) liar!" you put that first part on it. of course, during the debate governor romney left himself open to counter-attack as well. >> i'm sorry, jim, i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. i'm going to stop other things. i like pbs. i like big bird glo it's great muppet caper. naming as his only specific

budget cut, the relative pittance that is pbs and children's television worked shop. >> thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on big bird. >> jon: jaby-jab! excellent next-day comeback. ( laughter ) ( applause ) well done. ( applause ) yes. it's that 3:00 a.m. "oh, that's what i should have said! oh, m! the sassy counter-punch along with the recent decent jobs reports and debt to g.d.p. having hit a low,. >> mitt romney may have won the debate on wednesday night. but president obama won the postdebate. >> jon: see! the postdebate. at that rate, okay, fine, obama may lose the election, but he'll win the postelection.

( laughter ). november may suck, but that guy is going to have a sweet december. ( laughter ). but you know with all the ammo, that we just talked about, obama is going to get on it, i think. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> it's me, big bird. >> big,iel oh, a menace to our economy. mitt romney knows it's not wall street you have to worry about. it's sesame street. ( laughter ) ( applause ) ( cheers ) >> jon: so we're not moving on. ( laughter ) that's pretty hard hitting. you know the most damning line in thattade. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> jon: why? what is the use of having a superpac if they don't give you plausible deniability. you're going with the big bird pie, still? ( laughter )

you know what's going to happen next? >> this new ad that's come out from the obama campaign, let me play it for you this morning. i'd love your reaction, here it is. >> mitt romney taking on our enemies, no matter where they nest. >> i'm not even sure what the question is, senator, but i'm-- ( laughter ) i guess i am just asking-- >> i don't, either. ( laughter ). >> jon: that ad allowed john mccain, john mccain allowed him to laugh at you. ( laughter ) to laugh at you for using a cartoonish, child-like figure to invigorate your campaign. that's mccain who was saying that. ( applause ) that's got to hurt. but haters gonna hate, right? hater's gonna hate, the media, the republicans. but at least you're still fighting the good fight, children's literacy. >> obama for america says it's reviewing a request from the sesame workshop to stop airing the ad. >> jon: oh!

et tu, big bird? i have-- i may have mixed languages on that. all right, so lesson learned. maybe this will be a wake-up call to the president. to recapture some of that vigor and enthusiasm of '08, when a passionate candidate and committed base of supporters, artists. yesterday the commander in chief headed to ohio state university to speak to the youth once again with will i am in. perhaps this would be the moment to utline the grand vision in the niewrt. >> it may sound silly, and you may laugh, but this is the theme song from my childhood and i want to play is ♪ sunny day sweeping the clouds away ♪ . >> jon: let it go! oh, my god!

will i am played a sesame street song? at least he didn't have him do some half-assed remix of it. ( laughter ) >> jon: we'll be right

( cheers and applause ) >> jon: welcome-- welcome back to the program. as we saw earlier this our

program, the presidential race has now tightened considerably. how i do know? >> a new poll from the pew research center-- >> gallup daily tracking poll. >> rasmussen swing state poll. >> epic mra poll. >> fox news poll. >> quinnipiac poll. >> marquette university poll, nbc/"wall street journal" poll. >> you get a red cup for the republicans, a blue cup for the democrats. >> jon: the new two-girl, one-cup poll. that has a margin of error of-- i have to send this poll to my friends. some news anchors seem almost addicted to the polling data. >> i don't know about you, but one of the first thing i try to do in the morning is check the gallup tracking poll on the state of race for president. ( laughter )

>> jon: that's the saddest thing i've ever heard. ( laughter ) me, i get up, i have half a grape fruit, do a little jazzer-scise. then i check the gallup tracking poll. of course, there's just one small problem with all this data coming in. it has a tendency to contradict itself. just yesterday, obama was simultaneously up by four, down by two, and tied with mitt romney. ( laughter ) yeah, philosophy majors in the ( bleep ). ( applause ) now you know how unemployed philosophy majors are. ( laughter ) what do you want to do today? i don't know, let's go to see a show or something. what's the deal? doesn't matter. why are we even here? i don't know. ( laughter ) the problem with the polls is

that they are terrible, unreliable. and invaluable. >> the polling this year is the worst it's ever been. there's also rasmussen poll that has romney three hey, 47-44. >> a lot of these polls where you see the president with, like, a five- or six-point lead, you go into the internals and you see they've been over-sampling democrats by, like, nine, or even, 10 or even 13 points. >> actually, greg, there was a brand new national bloomberg poll released today showing governor romney leading president obama on the issue of terrorism by six point. >> jon: how the hell are these polls so divergent, useless, accurate, yet quotable? i think we all know what we need? nerds! >> when you see obamaing gaining in today's poll, that means obama's interviews yesterday were better than seven days ago conducted before the debate. he went from three ahead in the seven-day track yesterday to five ahead in the track today.

the next round of swing state polls shows the swing states tied, then democrats really will-- it will be appropriate for them to panic. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> jon: nobody understands these things but those guys. and they're not telling us anything. is there anything that can help us get a clearer picture? >> real clear politics doesn't average of all the polls. >> new nationwide poll of polls. >> when you do a poll of polls, you get a snapshot. you get a trend of what's going on. >> jon: oh, the poll of polls. why didn't i think of that. a poll is no good, but what about a poll poll. a poll poll will be good. not of course to be confused with a poll of polls. that reminds me of a joke. how many polls does it take to conduct an opinion poll? it's 400 because in a country of

40 million... that would constitute a representative sample. it's not a very good joke. ( laughter ). for more on the latest presidential polls we're joined by senior poll watcher jason jones. jason. ( cheers and applause ) >> there's a lot of contradictory information. so which polls should we be paying attention to? >> well, that is the question, isn't it? which polls to the pundits prefer. >> jon: i'm sorry, i didn't know you wore glasses. >> i don't. but they don't let you in the poll watcher club without a pair of nerd goggles. >> jon: can you see out of those at all? >> not a thing. >> jon: which polls are the pundits favoring? >> well, before the debut majority were leaning towards pew and gallup, but look what's happened in the last week air, massive three-point swing towards quinnipiac and arg, unmarried people pundits and blue collar bloggers twok key

demographics. >> jon: do you think that's a soft bounce or sticky bounce. i've seen a lot stickier, jon. after all, i'm a poll watcher. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> jon: poll humor for you. >> when you slide down the poll this week, rasmussen is going to be favored by likely pundits but cnn instapoll poll is polling well among pundits who no longer give a bleep. >> jon: that's got to be a big demographic. >> it's the biggest demographic. >> jon: any indication of which polls will pull away from the pack? >> let's look at our pail tracking poll tracking poll. it's a good day for gallup five day but a bad day for its three-day. bear in mind, all of that could change as of right now.

>> jon: well, obviously, when we get the result of the latest abc, "washington post," nabisco. >> jon, don't make stuff up. >> sorry. what can we expect on election day? >> our forecast predicts on the night of tuesday, november 6, interest in polls will plunge to per sent per. >> jon: fascinating. any margin of error? >> none at all. zero. >> jon: thank you, jason jones, everybody. we'll be right back.

( cheers and applause ) >> jon: welcome back. my guest tonight n.b.a. legend, played for the los angeles lakers for more than a decade, and received countless honors for that time. please welcome magic johnson. ( cheers and applause ) how are you? i'm doing great. >> jon: so nice to see you. >> you had me back there in tears that was so funny. >> jon: thank you, sir. we worked on that for almost an hour. >> especially the obama afterwards. you had me on the floor on that one. >> jon: thank you, sir. i imagine he's been on there as well, recently. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. he better get up in a hurry. >> jon: you have to get up.

let me get rid of the business first. this oracle, what is this a home test, hiv? you're endorsing this? >> yes, because it's important when you think about the hiv and aids fight today, we want to test more people, and so a lot of times, people then want to go to a doctor or to an hiv-aids clinic to get an hiv-aids test. now they've made it possible so you can do it in your own home. >> jon: an in-home. >> in-home displ and it's scientifically sound? >> yes, because doctors were already using this. now it's available to the public. >> jon: there's a lot of, obviously, rivalries in your business. are you worried larry bird will now come out with-- ( laughter ) hiv test, and we will try and blow your test out of the water? >> knowing larry, he might. >> jon: that's what i'm saying. >> so i gotta watch out for him and michael. make sure -- >> you don't know. michael will say, "i've actually gone to people's houses

dispefted them. i've brought the test to them, much better than magic." >> he can put it in his tennis shoes. >> jon: that's right. >> i definitely have to watch out for that. >> jon: i think you're absolutely right. it's a great thing that you're doing, and it's very, very i think admirable that you continue to focus on communities and helping people and all that, even given your success. >> thank you, i really appreciate that. when you think about african americans and latinos now, they make up 50% of the new cases of hiv, so i have to really focus in on this because it's hurting my community in a big way. >> jon: right, right. i think this test now being at home will help i think get away from the stigma. >> jon: absolute, and information is a key and treatment is a key and it's a great thing. how long does it take for rivals to become friendly? you know, i see now you and larry bird, you do shows together. there's a broadway show, you know, ralph frank and boab richardson, the famous home run.

it took them a long time to sort of become friends. ali-frazier never quite pulled the trick. these great rivalries. what is the foundation of those relationships? is it respect? is there antagonism that keeps people from being able to put their sports derpses aside. what you have seen? >> the reason you hate the other guy is because he's so good and you do respect him. >> jon: right. >> so-- and you know he can kick your butt at any time. >> jon: right. i feel that way about a large part of the world. >> yes, yes. ( laughter ). boy, that's a good one. >> jon: thank you ( applause ) walka mile in my shoes. >> exactly. i like that. >> jon: thank you, i appreciate that. >> i think that for larry and i, it was-- i truly respected the guy. heap kept me up, and i had sleepless nights because i knew if we made enough mistakes, that the celtics and larry bird could

beat us. once we did a comeecial. >> jon: this was in indian. was it a nike commerce? >> it was a converse commercial. >> jon: converse commercial. >> and we got to know each other away from the basketball court. he took me up to his house. his mother made lurn. his mother fell in love with me. i fell in love with her. it was a -- >> were you nervous, she slides you a plate of food...? >> and i'm watch glg did you say, "somebody get in here and taste this." you don't know what's happening? >> exactly, exactly. i did want to play the next season. >> jon: sure. >> so it was a trip because we finally start talking about about everything but basketball. and that helped us know each other as men. not as magic and larry going head to head and battling each other. and afterwards, it made it easier for us to be friends. >> jon: what replaces --

you know, that idea of competition, and when you're-- face facts -- the best in the world at something, which was basketball, and you and larry and you have this incredible competition, and then that ends. you have found something to replace that feeling? is that business? is there anything that you do that still gives you that juice, or is it that juice is maybe not as important to you as it was? >> to your last point, it's not as important, and you'll never find it. >> jon: yeah. >> there's nothing that drove me more than kicking larry's butt. ( laughter ). i mean, really. >> jon: i get it. it's an incredible-- i think it's hard to imagine being the best in the world at something. and to have somebody there thjing you and both of you pushing each other. it really was an amazing time. >> michael missed that. you know, larry and i were on our down years. we were actually going out when michael and the bulls got great.

and he didn't have anybody to go head to head or worry about or was scared of because the bulls were just better than everybody else. so the blessing for larry and i and the lake experts celtics, we had each other. larry pushed me to be great. and i hope i pushed him to be great. and that's why i was so great. and then hueverybody else, not just larry. kareem, and robert parish, kevin mckale and james worthy. it was unbelievable. and that's what made that whole rivalry so great. >> jon: i guess the real message tonight from magic johnson is find somebody to hate. ( laughter ). ( applause ) the great magic johnson. so nice have you.

( cheers and applause ). >> jon: that is our show. join us tomorrow night at 11:00, the great pta will be joining us. here it is, your moment of zen. >> only pawn in game of life.